Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Nick Kramer]: Alright, we are live.

[Matthew Birong]: Alright, everyone. We are back from lunch. Apologies for the late start. There was a lot of activity during the Newhour. So we're picking up work on H67, an act relating to legislative operations and government accountability. And we are going to open up with Katherine our chief by a fiscal officer from JFO. Welcome back, Katherine.

[Katherine Bennington]: Thank you. I am Katherine Bennington with the joint fiscal office, and it's nice to be here. And it's I haven't actually test testified in this room since I really love it. So it's a good space. Do you want me to just start talking? Does that make sense?

[Matthew Birong]: Yes. Sure.

[Katherine Bennington]: I have read your version draft number 2.2, and I appreciate the interest and accountability and trying to improve it on all fronts. And I would say I find this the mechanism in this to be challenging. And I'm going to suggest maybe doing a pilot project of government accountability. And the reason I'm thinking about that is some of you may or may not know, but we have a consultant at the Joint Fiscal Office who works on information technology projects. And that started off. I don't know, ten years ago, maybe longer ago than that, where we were given authority to hire a consultant or hire an employee on a limited service basis for two years to start analyzing IT projects and to provide information to the legislature as they were deciding whether to fund projects. And what we did was we ended up hiring a consultant and that guy, Dan Smith was great. And we started him with a small project. We started with a judiciary IT project. And we used it as a model for how we were going to analyze projects. Developed a report. He thought about how he would analyze IT projects generally. And we used that as sort of the test case to get it going. And we still use very much that format. You all probably haven't looked at it. But there's one page for every time we do this. These blue arrows, there's eight questions. And that consultant ranks them on like, does this have a good team lead? Is it technologically makes sense? Is there a reason for it? And it's the same eight questions for every time review a project. And it's been extremely useful to have that template in place. And so what I am thinking, and I hear you're not alone, know the Senate's also thinking about accountability. But what I'm going to suggest is we do something more along those lines where we start smaller and start with one study and really try to figure out what the format's going to be, how to work it through, think a little bit about how this person like help committees also during the session. It's a lot of work to do these studies. And I'll give you an example. The pre K study that we did this past fall, winter into February took four to five people a lot, many, many. It was a big project. It was a big undertaking. And so the studies in the current draft are pretty big and monumental. And I would just suggest we start small and see how it goes. And I would also suggest that to keep things simple, we because I work for the Joint Fiscal Committee, I would suggest using the Joint Fiscal Committee. They've got the appropriations chairs on there who are clearly thinking about accountability, and that is a good tie in for them as well. I have not. I actually have not talked to the House appropriations chair about this, but. So I don't know where she lands on it, but that is in my thinking is it's useful to have those people at the table when you're thinking about all this, at least to kick it off and to get it started. It could grow. So I'm going walk you back through our IT model where we hired this person. He did it for two years. We came back to the general assembly. They gave us some money for two more years. But we did it in piecemeal to see if we liked it. Then at some point, they were like, we like this. We just want to keep it going. And so we have it now as part of our budget. And that's just what we have done. But we went through at least two biennium. I'd have to go back and look of just having a sort of two year trial period on it. I might recommend it worked well in that case. And I think it could work well here as we try to figure out what makes sense. I know you all have been talking a lot about accountability and you have less ideas. I would also suggest I appreciate the idea of trying to get ideas from other committees. And I don't know that they have had the same conversations. They may not have the same definition of accountability. That may be why if we do test run with one case and then we have this person around, they might, and during the next session, into committees and help them understand how to think about accountability. I would also really like to pick something that is a win, like in terms of like we can do a report on it. It's manageable. It's not too big, not too small. And also, it's something that everybody agrees would be a useful thing to know more about. I would just say, for example, the Pre K report that I was just talking about. That has got a lot of information. You all may not read every page of it, but it is a useful document to have. And I don't think everybody appreciated having that done. And I would like in the end for the same thing to result, especially from the very first one, so it's a success and that people can see how it's useful. I don't know what that topic would be. Personally, I would want to run some ideas by people in leadership, people who are thinking about this to find a topic that works. I think you've all been to the all member briefings. And so that's what happens with the afternoon topics. I don't know if you remember the afternoon topics are different every December. That discussion is trying to figure out what is the topic that matters in the moment, that we can cover in one to two hours, that will provide important information for you all to come back. And so I would want to sort of do the same process with figuring out the topic for the first report in terms of getting buy in from a lot of people, some success, having an ability to really it takes some time to figure out that first report and figure out your structure and figure out how you're going to measure accountability and what terms you want to use and is it how you envision it moving forward in different scenarios. So that is my proposal. Current draft as you have it would actually be you don't have the appropriations in here, but it would be a big lift. And I would be asking for a fair amount of money in either consultants or people. What I'm thinking about for this pilot is more one person, whether it's a consultant or limited service, but for two years. And I would say $150,000 including benefits is what I would a person cost when you add in all the employee with retirement and state employment. I think you're thinking of somebody who's not somebody with some experience. 150. I mean, see government's not a super high paying place, That's a different discussion. So I would ask for That's what I'm envisioning, is something similar to what we did in that particular case. And you have flexibility to have a consultant or employee because different people want different things in their lives. I was a consultant in IT because he'd retired and that's how he wanted to do it. And as it turned out, it was not a 40 a week job, but there were weeks where it was a lot of fun. So it worked out well for all of us. And we have moved to another consultant who is Lisa Gobin, who is also doing that work now as a consultant. So I'm not quite I think that we would advertise and think about how see who comes in and think about different ways to structure depending on who comes in and who has the skill set and what the work is that we want to do. Trying to think of what else I should say. I don't know. Is there anything else you were thinking about representative Waters Evans that?

[Chea Waters Evans]: I think that as we've been going through this for, was it four years now, for all eternity that we've been talking about this, I think that it's important to myself and rep point and rep that we're all and I think to everyone at large that we're getting to a place where it's not we don't want to create a burden. For anyone who would be working on it for JFO or Ledge Counselor, anybody else who would be helping us with this. I did speak to and we'll have to probably have someone from JFC in here to testify if we're going to charge them with this. But I've had some informal conversations about it, and it seems like they're supportive. And it's just important that we are finding a good place for everybody to land where you feel comfortable. And it seems like this, if we were to implement sort of the things you suggested, like JFC being the government accountability committee, at least for the pilot, making sure that the way the project is chosen is neither a free for all for everybody to get their ideas, but also not focusing in on one out of like political malice or or personal whatever, but just finding something that's manageable. I've noticed that when we talk about that thing, we keep doing this with our hands. It's like, it's not a it's not a beach ball and it's not a softball. It's like a little volleyball, maybe like a good volleyball sized thing to work on. And that and that if if you can get some extra support for that, it would really be. It seems like we'd be heading in a direction that was comfortable for you. I just want to make sure that that's clear. And those are the things that we can probably work out and get some support for too. And We would be probably having to discuss a little more how we arrive at how that topic is chosen. I like the idea of consulting still with people from all political parties, people from leadership positions, house, and senate, whatever. And I'm sure once this gets over to the senate, they will have lots of ideas about it too. But I feel I'm appreciative of you taking so much time to think about it and give us your feedback because it's important. And you said something that

[Katherine Bennington]: I wanted to follow-up on. We're nonpartisan and it's really, it is. I really want to maintain that and I don't want it to put an employee in my office in a position where it starts to look partisan. And just for many reasons. I think it's a reputation and you have to really thread the needle carefully in a lot of places. I also would welcome the opportunity to consult with I don't want the right word to consult with the administration, the executive branch on it because they have their performance work going on as well. So it seems like it would be You never know who's going be in charge in either place at any time, but setting up in the big structure things, it would be nice to have some consulting talking with each other. That's what I would do anyway right now because I know them. But that is how I would envision playing it out. And I would also let you know the Joint Fiscal Committee is 10 members, five from each body. It's the four money chairs. And then they're required to have a minority party on. So there are both Republicans and Democrats on whoever's in charge. They're always both parties are represented on the committee. Anybody's interested, I can point you to the statute that talks about how the members get appointed. Because I think you've got to also think about here we all are right now and here you know who's on it, but it will evolve over time. And so the question question is, how do you want it to succeed in future time when there are different faces at the table and still have things moving forward and have the right people thinking about it and working on it?

[Chea Waters Evans]: Yeah. It seems like having people who are already, no pun intended, invested in the financial aspect of it, And understanding having a base level of knowledge that's pretty high is going to make the work of that committee a lot easier. The last iteration of the GAC, I think it was some people who had lots of skills, but maybe had those particular skills that would be helpful in this case. Am Brett Morgan isn't here yet, but I was just going to Or Pinsonault and Coffin, we were just discussing, I'll paraphrase, correct me if I'm wrong. She was just saying that perhaps we had the JFC, the Joint Fiscal Committee, act as the government accountability committee for a pilot program. I've spoken briefly with someone from the JFC who thinks this is a fine idea, and is amenable to working it out with everyone. Choosing a smaller project, that that would be a good way for JFO for this to move forward, in a manageable way, with adding either a consultant or a limited service position for the duration of the pay. That's where we are. Basically, put some other details.

[Katherine Bennington]: And I would think also your start date was in a year, and I think we just started this summer, fall. I don't see a reason to If you're using a committee that's already formed, we've got things in place. Would just assume we would start June 1 or something. Yeah. Well, yeah, depending on when the session's over. That's right. June 1. That's fine with me. Two other things I mentioned also, which is I'm just going to read to you because Brynn did text me, Ledge Counsel, Brynn Hare, the head of legislative counsel. And I'm just going to share with you her thoughts on it. And so her read is that the substantive support she read the 2.2 would come from the Joint Fiscal Office to the extent that the Office of Legislative Counsel, if you want their support, it would be administrative and legal, meaning committee services support recommendations on legislation. The Office of Legislative Counsel does not have the skill set to analyze enacted legislation current policy issues to measure performance. So they would be available for whatever if somebody wanted to I suppose draft language, legislation to think about or legal issues that would be where they would come in. So would I consult with them if they needed, if there was some legal thing. But I think a lot of this is not a legal discussion. But I wanted to share that. Let me say one other thing, is because I remember when I talk about this, we're talking about potentially a person or consultant, and I would say $150,000 per year, which is I'm going to also add somebody who also helps staff appropriations. That's a challenge in this. We are not in the same area we've been for the past several years where there's money is much tighter now. It's much more like it used to be. So I'm not going to I'm just going to say they're facing some challenges and lots of demands for money as well and don't have a lot of resources. So that is a piece of this that would come with that. And that will be a discussion for the House to decide what your priorities are and how you want to allocate funding.

[Matthew Birong]: So, what I'm hearing though is shifting to a JFC model, it can be implemented faster, pilot, like a singular focus on one thing that it's yet to Yes, Robert Zapnago.

[Robert Hooper]: Thank you. And I'm guessing because this just came about very recently, this position doesn't live in the budget anywhere.

[Katherine Bennington]: 100% correct. That's why you'll have to if this were to happen, the budget would have to find funding for it.

[Matthew Birong]: And remind me of that dollar amount.

[Katherine Bennington]: It's $150,000 including benefits. So that would be, I would assume it would be a two year It could be whatever you all want, just to be clear. But in my mind, I was thinking, okay, you try it for two years, so it would be $150,000 for two years. So, each year would be a total of $300,000 over those two years. That makes more sense to you Yes.

[Matthew Birong]: That's not what I thought.

[Katherine Bennington]: Yes, thank you. I'm glad I clarified. So they wouldn't need to find the 300,000 in this budget, but they would need to Yeah. Plan for it in the next

[Matthew Birong]: Any other questions, Cheaper? As always, we really appreciate it.

[Katherine Bennington]: Sure. Good to stay in the middle.

[Matthew Birong]: Oh, Right. No, it's Nick Kramer. How are you, Nick? Good.

[Nick Kramer]: Mr. Chair, is it alright if I bring a friend up, my colleague Katie Buckholz here as well? Sounds like a fabulous idea. Does it work for you or works for us? I will kick us off and then you won't devote my time to Katie, who's really the subject matter expert on performance, but

[Matthew Birong]: we will

[Nick Kramer]: address that in introduction. So High Committee, good to see you again. For the record, Nick Kramer, Chief Operating Officer for the Agency of Administration, joined by my colleague.

[Katie Buckholt]: Katie Buckholt, Director of Performance Improvement and Agency of Administration.

[Nick Kramer]: So, we're to you, Mr. Chair, we'll just launch in, unless there's any preliminary questions. The table is yours, sir. Great. So, I'll speak briefly, I hope, at a high level reactions to the bill, then, like I said, to kind of turn it over to Katie for maybe a little bit more granular feedback. Really appreciate the opportunity to sit and listen to Catherine's testimony. I think that's sort of an intriguing concept. And generally, I would say is, you know, the executive branch and the administration fully support the goals of this bill, right? Government accountability is something we're all constantly concerned about and striving towards. And we have a whole chief performance office that does a lot of work in that field, and it's something embedded in the operations of state government. And we can all acknowledge, right, there's always room for improvement, right? Continuous improvement is sort of the space that this office lives and breathes. So very much appreciate that the committee has been spending a lot of time on this. It sounds like over the last couple of years, it's been an thing, and I recognize iterations of GAC and various bodies that have attempted to tackle this topic. Some of the themes that I'd hit on are not going to be a surprise or unfamiliar to committee members from the executive branch's perspective. Initiatives like this, I think, work best and are most successful when there's really clearly defined roles for what each party is doing, right? So what is the legislature's role in this? What is the role of the executive branch, whether that's the chief performance office? I think in the latest draft, they're sitting as non voting members informing the work. What's the role of the auditor's office? Right? I think you all heard from Tim Ash a couple of weeks ago, cut the tail end of that testimony. Obviously, this is an area that has a lot of overlap with the work that the auditor's office does, right? And so, for lack of a more refined term, I think, like thinking about swim lanes and kind of who's doing what and what the charge is of each entity is really helpful to have that be really granular and really defined so that we avoid duplicative work certainly or contradictory work. And I want to name, I think, as we've tracked the evolution of this bill, this is a great example, I think, of legislation that has seen a lot of discussion and treatment and shifts over time. And we really appreciate the direction that it's gone and sort of moving towards, it seems like, and I have not to put words in anybody's mouth, but it seems like the committee's sort of at this point of trying to figure out like, okay, how do we test this theory or how do we put something in place to see how to see what works? Right. And I think that was a theme of what Katherine just described is like, all right, how do we utilize existing infrastructure to pursue this really important goal. So to that end, I would say a couple of things. We are always sensitive, as you all know, about the many, many, many things everybody does in the executive branch and the legislative branch in terms of their day job. And whenever there's a new initiative, there's always the risk of potentially unfunded mandates and extra work. Speaking of like, we engage frequently with the auditor's office. When somebody gets a call from the auditor's office, the team was joking, they don't jump out of their boots. That's no shots fired at them personally. It's just the acknowledgment that part of

[Matthew Birong]: the work

[Nick Kramer]: of faithfully collaboratively working with any sort of accountability entity to do that work involves quite a bit of time in the parties that are engaged in that, right? So there's a position you just heard from Catherine talking about a position internal to the legislature. The draft bill contemplates involvement from the Chief Performance Office. That's obviously some time in sitting on committees. But I think there's also the potential for a lot of embedded cost or time or engagement with executive branch member employees, writ large, depending on what the investigations are. And so I would just, I guess, at a high level urge the committee to be sensitive to that as you're thinking about how this unfolds. Nothing happens in a vacuum and nothing is free, unfortunately, in this world. So that's one kind of high level thing. I think I touched on kind of clear definition of roles, the constant potential for work. I have one really small administrative kind of operational quibble with the bill as drafted, which is there's a $2,000 appropriation to the agency of administration for per diems. I'm almost not exaggerating to say that the staff time collectively that would be involved to process that one time appropriation over the course of the four years that the committee has currently contemplated would be more than $2,000 like so it's almost administratively like would be great to have that just land with if this is going to be sort of staffed with the joint fiscal office and part of their general appropriation, I would just direct the per diem appropriation there. I mean, it's not something we couldn't operationalize. It's just that such a small amount of money. It would be kind of juice not worth the squeeze. But yeah, I guess I'll leave it there. So Katie's with me today to talk kind of more granularly from the Chief Performance Office's perspective. Like I said, they're kind of our office that does a lot of this work and accountability, but also process improvement and thinking about, you know, are we doing government right? So they have a lot of expertise to share. I think she's got lots of feedback, and we're certainly happy to follow-up if there are specific questions on things, I guess I'll pause if there's any questions for me and otherwise be able to.

[Matthew Birong]: Any questions from Board member, I guess.

[Katie Buckholt]: Thanks, Pat. We appreciate the legislature's focus on this issue, and I know Justin was disappointed he couldn't be here today. Know he's met with a couple of you, but he shared some notes and thoughts to share. I would definitely echo what was shared earlier around scope and capacity. Six issues could potentially be a lot. And program evaluation and performance analysis could be incredibly in-depth, so having consultants or limited service support would absolutely be necessary. It's something we learn in our work too with working with agencies is when you think your pilot's small enough, go even smaller. Especially when trying new things, we find that over and over again. Helpful to learn where your blast radius is as small as possible. Minor note that Justin had noted, it could be helpful to clarify whether the 10 meeting limit is per year or per the life of the committee over two years, and whether the committee can prioritize depth over breadth, I. E, focusing on a smaller number of issues, which was shared earlier. We don't. And as Nick mentioned, clarifying the appropriate level of oversight. It can be when you're getting into program evaluation, it can be really easy to get into the nitty gritty details of day to day operations. But the legislative oversight can be most helpful when it's focused on legislative intent, use of evidence of policy making, operating at that little bit higher level focused on outcomes and results. We find that in our work as well, too. Really get bogged down in some of the nitty gritty, but focusing on outcomes and results is very powerful. In sections eight and nine, any conversations around accountability, would love to see focus on the annual outcomes and performance reporting. In the legislation that exists already around the annual outcomes report, we would love to see there be a greater focus on legislative ownership of reviewing the statewide indicators. I think as it's written now, can be presented to the committee to review. It would be great if that was a standard expectation, like the committee looks at it as well and makes requests for new data. The legislative ownership over those indicators could be incredibly valuable. And in the initial purpose of the bill, it mentions looking at how legislation is designed and if it is designed for effective monitoring, but it wasn't necessarily stated in the duties of the committee. So, this could include reviewing whether results were articulated in statute or performance measures identified in the legislation from the outset. How could we better define and design our legislation to support the decision making in the future around funding of those initiatives? And I think any conversation around legislative use of data and evidence policy making too, it's important to think about how the legislature is currently using performance data. Back in the days of RBA, when RBA was very, very prominent, legislators used to receive training around data and performance and how to use it, and I don't believe those efforts have been continued. So, it could be interesting to examine the legislatures and institutions, like how fluent they are with data and using it for policymaking. Section 10 talks about evaluation tools, and I just wanted to flag that the state has an impact assessment tool that's used as part of the budget process. It could be interesting to that. And it could be used as a mechanism to look at program evaluation and make sure that there is front end accountability and impact is thought at the beginning of the legislative process, so that that tool does exist. And I think in closing, I think this is a great step towards strengthening government accountability and appreciate to continue the conversation.

[Matthew Birong]: Any questions for our guests on this one?

[Chea Waters Evans]: Thank you. I just wanted to say we've appreciated the work that your office has done and that the input we've received. I think it's really been helpful to us to hone in on what we're trying to do and the best way to get there. Appreciate the time that you took. Speaking of efficiency and accountability, it took you time to do this and it's much appreciated.

[Nick Kramer]: We always appreciate the conversation. Certainly happy to continue as the committee workshops new ideas, if there are ways we can provide input or perspective, always here.

[Chea Waters Evans]: Thank you.

[Matthew Birong]: Thank you very much. Yeah, obviously, we're going to continue work on this because we've got some more suggestions that we're going to, I assume Yes. See transcribed into new language. So we'll have a new results. You're all set with you. So that actually caught up on the clock. So, next we have the Regional County Governance Study Committee, which as we've taken testimony on before, you all know, is setting up a continuation of, an existing study committee. The new language that is there, was something that was reworked by myself in coordination with Senator Harrison, who is a veteran member of that committee. And so just like a refresher, what we were trying to do was just kind of like hone in on the charges and duties within that. So you'll see a couple of changes in there. One of the other notable changes from the first draft is that we push the existence of the committee out an extra year. So it would exist the entire entirety of the next biennium in case there was a need for the committee to do continued work after the first delivery of a report. So I think those are the most notable changes was, there's some like legislative intent put in as well as the structure of charges and duties. So that's what we're taking a look at. And that is one of the things we have flagged for a possible vote on right after the test. So with that, if everybody's cool with it, we'll take a break for twelve minutes. Alright.